bmercier

Hi Paul, Integration with ISY is definitely richer & deeper. For the purpose of clarification, there are 2 integrations points. First of all, under Settings/Connected home, you will see the ISY there. That will give you "standard" device control. Basically On, Off, On to x%, Brighten and Dim type of functions. That's all that can be done under connected home. What is more interesting is the ISY skill; you will find this soon under "skills" in the echo app. You will be able to do the same thing as with the connected home (On, off, brighten, dim), but also: Thermostat control: Get the temp, adjust mode, adjust setpoints. Doorlock control: Lock, unlock, lock all doors, unlock all doors Program: Run (runIf), Stop, get status The difference between connected-home & skills is that connected home provides shorter spoken sentences. Example: Connected home: Alexa, turn on deviceXYZ Skill: Alexa, tell ISY to turn on deviceXYZ It's useful to be able to speak shorter sentences, so that's why both were developed. But underneath, it's really 2 different things. Both were submitted to certification, but Amazon seems to take their time. Thanks, Benoit

Hello, I have reports that UDAjax has trouble with Smarthome outdoor camera. Can anyone confirm that it is working, or not working? If not working, can someone try to choose Foscam / Foscam FI98XX (H.264) instead? I have reports that this config would work. I would need confirmation before doing a permanent correction to UDAajx. Thanks, Benoit.

Barkster, Using "Status device is not off" is the best approach if you want a simple timer. I took a more sophisticated but also more complex route that I can share. My requirements were: 1 - Shutdown lights gradually, so that if the room is occupied, this leaves a chance to turn it on again before being in complete darkness. 2 - Provide a way to give more time, if you know you will occupy the room longer than usual (example receiving friends late). The approach here is that a Double Click (FastOn) will provide me 1 or 2 hours, instead of just a few minutes. This unfortunately requires 4-5 programs and a variable, for each of your lights. The complex part is that you want to trap the "Status is not off" independantly of the "Fast On"... which will also trigger a status change. And during the shutdown, dimming the light will also trigger a status change, which you don't want either. That's the reason for the variable. This is how I did it. Program 1: StatusOn DeviceXYZ If ( Status 'RC / Cuisine' is not Off Or Control 'RC / Cuisine' is switched On ) And $TimerStateCuisine is 0 Then Stop program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' Wait 30 minutes Run Program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' (If) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') $TimerStateCuisine is an integer variable. 0 = Normal operation 1 = FastOn timer or Shutdown in progress (Bypass status detection) The Status "is not off" is useful to catch all cases of having the light turned on no matter how. The Control "is switched on" is useful for the case where the light is already On. This will restart the timer. Program 2: Shutdown DeviceXYZ If Status 'RC / Cuisine' > 50% Then $TimerStateCuisine = 1 Set 'RC / Cuisine' 50% Wait 1 second $TimerStateCuisine = 0 Wait 1 minute Run Program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' (Else Path) Else $TimerStateCuisine = 1 Set 'RC / Cuisine' 25% Wait 1 second $TimerStateCuisine = 0 Wait 1 minute Set 'RC / Cuisine' Off This program is always disabled. This means a change of status will not trigger the program. The only time the program will run is when it is called by another program. The idea here is that you want the shutdown to start at 50% if the light was 50% or more, but if the light was let's say 30%, you don't want to brighten it to 50%. It will start at 25% in this case. The 1sec delay after changing the light state is to allow reevaluation of the Program 1 (StatusOn program) Without it, the TimerStatus would be set to 0 too rapidly, and StatusOn would be reevaluated while the variable is set to 0, allowing the StatusOn then clause to run, and therefore stopping the shutdown sequence. The shutdown could very well be done using a change to the ramp rate, then just turning it off. I preferred this way. Hint: If the switch is not a dimmer, you can have it beep a few times before turning it off. Program 3: FastOn DeviceXYZ If Control 'RC / Cuisine' is switched Fast On Then $TimerStateCuisine = 1 Stop program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' Wait 2 hours Run Program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' (If) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') When you want more time, the FastOn would you 2 hours, instead of the 30 minutes in the StatusOn program. Setting the variable to 1 will prevent running the Program 1 (StatusOn) then clause. Program 4: StatusOff DeviceXYZ If Status 'RC / Cuisine' is Off Then Stop program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - FastOn' Stop program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - StatusOn' $TimerStateCuisine = 0 Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Whenever a device is turned off, no matter how, you want the timers to stop. Otherwise, a shutdown will eventually run... brightening the light to 25% before turning it off again. Program 5: Shutdown at midnight If Time is 12:00:00AM And Status 'RC / Cuisine' is not Off Then Run Program 'OffTimer - Cuisine - Shutdown' (If) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') I normally put all these programs in a folder which is active only between midnight and 4pm, depending on the room. For example, I do not want timers in the kitchen or dining room during the evening. Only after midnight, or day time, should someone turn it on. Therefore a program is required to initiate a shutdown, because if it was left on, no timers will be active and it will stay on all night. I have several variations of these programs. The delays are different depending on the use of the room. You can also enhance it so that the timer is reset if there is motion in the room. Benoit

There is no need for the nexia bridge as it will communicate directly with the zwave module, and therefore can be accessed and controlled by ISY. Your assumption is right, in the sense that you would need nexia if you want a web-based access outside of ISY. However, you can have a web interface to ISY that will give you access to your thermostat. Out of the box, the standard ISY web based interface (UDAjax) allows to access/control the thermostat. And so does the Home Automation Dashboard (HAD), which allows you to customize yourself a web interface to your ISY HAD partial screen shot with thermostat controls: ISY UDAjax (ISY standard web interface) partial screen shot: I'm not familiar with the Nexia bridge/account. I assume it may possibly be simpler for someone to get remote access to the thermostat, outside of your home. But personnally I would not want to have a separate web interface limited to thermostat and other nexia accessible devices like doorlocks. I want a web interface to control everything. I don't think you can do anything more than you could with ISY.

If that can help, I do use zwave thermostat, a Trane TZEMT400BB3NX. I have absolutely no range issue with it. My ISY is in the basement, and the thermostat is on the second floor. I have very little zwave devices here. I find that zwave range issues are mostly related to doorlocks, and other battery operated devices. Doorlocks in particular require a secure connection to the ISY, either directly or through the use of another secure device. Also, if reliabiality is a concern, it's not worse than a regular thermostat. I mean, even if there is no zwave connection, the thermostat will still continue to work by itself. But I agree, there does not seem to be great thermostats available which you can use and control by the ISY. The best I could find is a Trane XL624, which I just ordered. I was looking for a zwave thermostat to which I can hook up an outdoor temp sensor, to use on the main floor. Beware, the high-end trane thermostats like the XL824 and XL950 do not seem to have an exposed zwave interface.

I would suggest to base your choice on the mobile app, but also on the integration options, in general. The ISY web interface has a feature to configure and display cameras. It has built-in definitions for a few cams, but you can define just about any cam, given that there is a URL available to get image snapshots. So that should not be a criteria, most if not all modern cams should have this. However, with API from the camera, you can potentially control it using network resources. You could for instance enable/disable recordings. I know you can do that at least with Foscam and Axis cams. On the opposite side, you may be able to control devices or scenes using the ISY rest API with some cams. With Axis, you can create custom scripts that gets triggered based on events like when there is motion, and I think that with such a custom script we could trigger events on the ISY. I have not tried that though. Foscam does not have this capability. Hope that helps, Benoit.

Wow, I'm impressed. Thanks for sharing! Benoit.

You are right, camera support is a feature of the web client only. There is no reference to the camera in the admin GUI. As far as network resources are concerned, the only thing that could possibly be done is trigger an event on the camera to start recording based on an event. And that's only if you can find an API specific to your camera to achieve that. I personnally have a Foscam camera (a 9805), and I don't think we could do that. Also, you cannot gather data coming from a network resource, if this is what you are trying to do. If you really want to, You could use the camera motion detector to systematically store images to a server when there is motion, and then use ISY network resources to trigger cleanup scripts on that server to only keep those images within a certain time range relative to that event. Benoit.

I also had this problem. Try to enter manually your city and state. This is what worked for me: "dorval,qc,ca" Benoit.

I'm using the Zwave Trane thermostat. It works flawlessly. No issues with range either. Benoit.

Hello James, I know you don't want polling, but if you don't find anything else, maybe the "Home automation dashboard" would be suitable for your need. It is a web based interface to ISY than can be easily customized. It requires polling, but you could set it with a refresh rate of let's say 2 seconds. You can choose the devices that you want to monitor. IOlink, Kwikset, EZflora are all supported. Variable are supported. Camera support is available too. Alarm integration is not available though, but there would be an easy work around. You could have programs to set variables based on a zone, and monitor that variable. For more information on Home Automation Dashboard: viewtopic.php?f=100&t=13548 Benoit.

Actually, I checked my Elk documentation, and yes, it could detect it. I have to set the zone for a "Fast Loop response", and configure this to lower than 50ms (Can be as low as 20ms). But still, I'm not sure it's a good idea to use an Elk input for counting. I don't know how the integration works between the Elk and ISY, and there may be too much overhead. Any input on this appreciated. Thanks, Benoit.

jrainey, I'm looking into doing the exact same thing. I was to try out a rain collector with a tipping bucket, until I saw this post. This Hydreon Optical Sensor seems to be a very interesting solution. Have you purchased it? Does it work with the IOlink? I'm not sure if I would hook it up to an IOlinc, or to an unused input of my ELK. I would guess that the ELK can detect a 50ms pulse. But I'm a bit worried that the Elk integration with ISY adds overhead and causes problems if the counting pace is too high, compared to an IOlinc. Anyone knows? Thanks, Benoit.

Ok, so we are saying the same thing then. I though you meant it ran only once. Thanks, Benoit.

Hi Johnny, My take on this subject is this; Whenever persistence is not required, it's preferable to avoid writing to nvram. Not because of speed, but rather longevity of the SDCard. Maybe it's negligible if you write to it only once in a while. But if you have programs that writes "frequently", I would try to avoid it if possible. As you guessed, enabling/disabling programs, or using InitTo on variables is not better. But if you don't need persistence, use variables without InitTo. As far as speed is concerned, at execution time, writing to nvram takes longer that writing to the ram, but it's really negligible unless a program is looping continuously. Your post seems to suggest that writing often to nvram causes performance issues in the long run. I'm not sure how this file system works, and if this could cause things like disk fragmentation. Maybe changing the enable/disable flag writes a new file, maybe it stores it's data on the nvram in another spot than the file system, I really have no clue on this one. Benoit.

Now that my ISY is back to work, I just upgraded the firmware to 3.1.17 and was anxious to test this. My conclusion is that it still generates two events. In the following program, the counter is increased by 2 each time the light is turned on: If Status 'Etage / Salle de bain' is On Or Control 'Etage / Salle de bain' is switched On Then $TestCounter += 1 Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') And the control is always the first event. Sometimes, it may be desirable to combine control and status of the same device, if you AND a control and status from the same device, the program will run only once, and this will be during the control. When the status event occurs, it will run the else, because the control will always be false on that event. Also, during the control event, the evaluation occurs with the status PRIOR to the switch being pressed, not the new status (if that happens to actually change the status). Benoit.

BINGO! I am impressed! This is not a cache issue. Recently, I was annoyed by the double login (Java then ISY), and attempted to correct it. I looked in the forums and found out I could use a URL like http://www.universal-devices.com/99i/ I basically copied this html file and support files to my web server... but I didn't realize I was then using the old 2.8.x gui. THANKS! Benoit.

That makes sense. I was running below 3.1.16 when I tested that. So maybe it works better now. I wanted to test it again at 3.1.16 last night, but my ISY is not working well at the moment See my previous post on my issue: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=7928 Thanks for correcting me. Benoit.

Hi, Yesterday I went to the admin console to create a new program for testing, and I found out my programs were all messed up. I was missing about 50 programs (Had only 30 out of 88 programs). Some of them were in a status "not saved", and I had a yellow error message one of them saying something about memory. I was running 3.1.16. Not sure how many days it was in that state, but some programs were intact and running correctly. I did factory reset a few times and tried to update firmware to 3.1.17, then tried to downgrade to 3.1.14. Each time I was restoring a 3.1.14 backup or 3.1.13 backup. Always the same problems. I started to think that maybe my backup was wrong. I looked in the archive and I could find the 88 programs. I dit telnet the ISY, and could also see 88 programs in \conf\d2d... but the admin console still shows only 30 something programs. I believe this has to do with variables. None of the 30 programs shown in the admin console use variables, and to my knowledge all the programs missing uses them. Furthermore, I can't find anymore the variables tab in the admin console. I don't recall where it was, but navigating all the menu structure, I can't find it. Any advice? Thanks, Benoit.

Hi Johnny, I woulld also add that it's better to avoid disabling/enabling programs within programs, especially if they are to run frequently. Each time, this writes to the nvram in the ISY. It would be better to catch it with variables, as this stays in memory, and does not write to nvram (unless you also change the init value). Benoit.

It's not a good idea to combine status and control conditions in the same program. I have played with this a lot, just to find out that control and status generates 2 different events if they relate to the same device. You first get an event for the control, the if is evaluated and the program runs accordingly. Then, the status change, cancels the program and retriggers the evaluation. The status is always the second event (no matter if it's a on, Fast on, etc), and the controls always evaluate to false, because the event is the status change. Perhaps this behavior has changed in recent firmwares, as apostolakisl suggest, but this was like that not so long ago. So for my own needs, I wanted to have different behavior for a Fast On, and a "normal" On (no matter how it was turned on). So I used a program triggered on a Fast On that sets a variable. Then, from a status change I can also check the variable, so I know it comes from the Fast On, or not. Benoit.

Look at this post from nstein. It allows to have your web page on another web server, and pass the rest requests to ISY and pass the user/pw at the same time. viewtopic.php?f=63&t=v6729&start=15 Benoit

jtara, I did not know roomie. That's great, I will look into that as well. The only thing I see is that someone could manually turn your scientific atlanta on or off, and it would break the state info. You could add a synchrolinc to your box, and know for sure if it is powered on or off. Thanks for sharing! Benoit.

As others have said, you need to have all of your lights listed in the If section. However, you can shorten your list by listing them only once, using this approach. Program Giant_If If Status 'RC / Cuisine' is On Or Status 'RC / Luminaire SAD' is On Or Status 'RC / Spot salon' is On ..... Then - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') If Program 'Giant_If' is False Or Program 'Giant_If' is True Then ... This will run whenever there is any change of status of your lights listed in the Giant_If... Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Benoit.

Hi Stealle, A nice thing to do for a "movie scene" is to use a synchrolinc on the TV which detects if it is turned on or off. As an example, when the TV is turned on in the everning, I use it to turn off the front lights and Dim the back lights to 18%, just enough to see the remote. When I turn off the TV, all lights in the room get to 50%. I also have a remotelinc to override this if need be. Now, a scene or a program? Depends. If the you only want your lights to follow the TV On & Off, scenes is the way to go. However, if you want to add any conditions, you need programs. An obvious one... you probably don't want the lights to turn on during day time. Therefore, you need programs. Let us know what you would like to achieve more specifically, and we can help. Benoit.